The use of infusion pumps to administer solutions to patients is well known in the medical arts. Such infusion pumps are generally used for both enteral and parenteral applications, whereby enteral feeding pumps are used to provide patients with nutrition and medication when they are unable, for a variety of reasons, to eat normally and parenteral respectively intravenous solutions are provided to patients to ensure adequate hydration and to provide needed nutrients, minerals and medication.
These pumps are therefore generally designed such as to administering fluids to a subject in well regulated manner, whereby the infusion pump is used to regulate the amount and rate at which the fluid is delivered from a reservoir to the patient. Typically a tube connected to a supply means such as a reservoir passes through the infusion pump which thus feeds the provided fluid to the patient.
In order to guarantee proper operation of the pumping device, the infusion pumps are generally equipped with sensors for measuring parameters and providing feedback information about the current dosing respectively feeding process. It is further known to provide the pumping device with a user interface in order to display information about the operation of the pumping device and/or to provide feedback information of connected sensors to the user of the pump. Thereby, general information such as temperature, flow rate and amount of administered fluid may be displayed, as well as alarms relating e.g. to a deviation of the sensed parameters from predefined parameters regarding the administering process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,904,668 for example relates to a pumping device comprising a cassette holding flexible tubing through which fluid can be metered and which is to be inserted into the pumping device. The housing of the device comprises a user interface having a keypad via which a user may input data and commands and a backlighted, dot matrix display for displaying textual messages to the user. At the front side, the pump comprises a pair of LEDs for indicating a normal respectively an abnormal operating condition of the pump. The pump is further equipped with an audible alarm generator.
The known pumping devices suffer the drawback that the feedback information provided by the sensors of the pumping device is usually presented to the user only in text form e.g. by means of a text-output or error code on a dedicated display. In particular with regards to critical information relating to the operational parameters of the pumping device and specifically with regards to error-related information, such presentation is however too complex and may lead to a wrong assessment by the medical personnel operating and/or supervising the administering process by means of the pumping device.
Hence, especially in the field of medical applications, in time-critical situations and/or for use by untrained medical personnel, a quick and easy operable infusion pump is desired, which enables an enhanced and facilitated operation and a convenient presentation of feedback and/or error-related information to the user.